Thursday, November 4, 2010

Taiwan’s STV entertainment program, “Super Lucky” (命運好好玩) became the latest media outlet to report on the suspicions surrounding Korean female celebrities in providing sexual favors for fame. While the topic itself is controversial, it became more so once outraged fans discovered that the producers used images of SNSD to illustrate their points.

The show featured a famous critic named Chen Ling Ling and Taiwanese idol Lin Wei Ling.

An image of SNSD along with a large caption stating “Sexual Favors” was then brought up, which gave viewers the impression that SNSD was the most representative case.

Chen Ling-Ling explained, “There are numerous rules in the Korean entertainment industry, and one of them is providing sexual favors. Agencies teach singing, dancing, and acting, and heavily manage their celebrities. Once their schedules are completed, however, they call the celebrities back out in order to participate in a dinner. This is usually considered the ‘first meeting’, and tends to be just a dinner. However, once dinner is over, the person will call the agency representative and express their desire to see her again. The next meeting is when the sexual favor takes place. Korean celebrities are forced to commit such acts, even at a young age.”

She continued, “I think that this is really unfortunate. Why must a celebrity receive such a phone call? But regardless, this is universal in Korea’s industry. Their agencies place an immense amount of pressure on the girls and force them so that they cannot refuse. It’s such an unfortunate case, but I heard that agency representatives force their celebrities to providing sexual favors, even driving some to the point of suicide.”

A few months ago, Lin Wei Ling (Estrella Lin) made a shocking confession when she revealed that she was canvassed to barter her body in exchange for an opportunity to make it in Korea. Lin reiterated her story on the show, saying, “I was requested to provide sexual favors while promoting in Korea.” Additionally, the Taiwanese singer claimed that she was forced to go under the knife: “I had to undergo plastic surgery while working in Korea. They told me to put fat in my face. I told them that I didn’t want to, and they stated that it was my responsibility as a celebrity to do so.”

Another guest on the show, Vivian, added, “It’s the price of being a celebrity. People think that all you need are looks, a pretty face, and dreams of becoming a celebrity.” Vivian went as far as to provide a chart and aggressively criticized Korean celebrities.

Fans angrily began questioning, “Why are you messing with SNSD,” and “Just because SNSD is so popular, you must forcefully tack on meaningless rumors.”

Meanwhile, Super Junior’s Ryeowooktweeted in disgust, “This old lady can’t even differentiate between poop and bean paste, she’s just going all out, wow~ even i as a man can’t handle it… tsk tsk”